And we’re one day in, which means there’s enough data to start comparing it to the Volume 1 campaign.

For context: I do a softlaunch the evening before, only notifying Patreon and the mailing list. Then I queue all the announcements for other sites, and the official “hey there’s a book!” updates start hitting the general public at midnight, kicking off the official Launch Day.

More early enthusiasm this year! (The mailing list drove almost all the day-0 traffic.)

That bump evened out by the end of day 1, when the number of backers was about the same. So the advance notice didn’t expand the audience, just concentrated it earlier. Pretty sure that still looks better to the search algorithms, at least.

The higher average pledge can be partly credited to the catch-up tiers — that is, “spend $20 more to get Rose Trees along with Sword Lilies.” So far, “books that already exist” account for $140 of the earnings.

Higher pledges are also caused by how almost everyone wants a physical book! Of the day-1 backers for Rose Trees, 8 were digital-only or no-reward. For Sword Lilies, only 3 are settling for anything less than the paperback.